Sideblog Archive
September 26, 2015
It was passed among geeks on VHS and screened at sci fi cons in the 1980s: flash back to The Wizard of Speed and Time, a stop-motion live-action superhero short handmade by Mike Jittlov in 1979, and the cult feature film it inspired. First post by turtlebackriding.
September 24, 2015
Last day! Fans of odd data, now's your last chance to be counted: The Big MetaFilter Survey 2015 by Rock Steady closes tonight.
September 22, 2015
"I guess it's time I finally write a serious comment about Skyrim modding. Here goes": Ryvar completes his quest with an amazing comment on what you need to mod your world, like a boss dragonslayer.
September 19, 2015
Fun question in Ask Me: You spin me right round baby right round like a what? "I need songs with specific lyrics which I can play for my daughter which represent antiquated technology that she has no real understanding of."
September 18, 2015
Lovely ink links recently on Mefi: Penmenship isn't dead: the vibrant art of well-crafted written forms introduces two talented young penmen
Chinese calligraphy and painting manual from 1633 now online, in full offers a view of "the earliest and the most beautiful example of multicolor printing anywhere in the world"
How the ballpoint pen killed cursive looks at the surprisingly complicated influence of the biro
I should be able to read that discusses Copperplate, a beautiful and elaborate script that in its time was considered a basic penmanship style
And in Ask Me: "What are some good resources for a southpaw to improve his handwriting that don't involve the kind of cursive I was (not) taught as a child?" and "What's the best non-bulky fountain pen you've used?"
September 17, 2015
Some great recent posts on the natural world: A 17th-Century Woman Artist’s Butterfly Journey: gorgeous images and bio info on early entomologist-artist Maria Sibylla Merian
The inner life of the fig: documentary on the sycamore fig tree, focusing on the intricate mutualism between a fig tree and its fig wasp
A tree grows in Israel: an extinct Judean Date Palm is grown from an ancient jar of seeds unearthed by archaeologists
My hovercraft is full of Petromyzon marinus: science, lore, and more on the fearsome sea lamprey
Satan Put the Kettle On: the mystery of Devil's Kettle Falls' vanishing waterfall
September 16, 2015
What was it like to be alive on September 15, 1985? "from the mundane to the profound, what do you remember about that time?"
September 15, 2015
Here's episode #2 of the new Out of the Blue podcast: cortex talks with Jess Zimmerman about emotional labor and the recent epic MetaFilter thread about it.
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Thanks to the work of everyone in this thread, I was able to make a positive identification of the song, order the vinyl, and have it professionally converted to digital. The OP has updated an old thread about a 30-year-old mystery tune in Ask Me with a YouTube video of the song. Yay, team!
Looking for more musical mysteries to solve? What's the Baby Elephant song I heard at Burning Man?
I'm trying to identify a sample from the first few minutes of this album
Loving you is . . . easy to forget? What was that song from 2008 - 2009?
Finding a song based on a music video: "a woman riding a horse and she had dramatically long hair that floated through the sky"
September 13, 2015
Of poets and liars: "the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep’s cloth" explains how everyone knows Robert Frost’s "The Road Not Taken" – and how almost everyone gets it wrong (though not everyone: "I wrote a whole commencement speech about this general idea")
Plus a post about Best American Poetry guest editor Sherman Alexie's response re a white male poet who appropriated a Chinese name to use for submission to the anthology
and in Ask Me, looking for the author who said (something like) "The poet lies ... most especially when writing about himself"
September 12, 2015
The oldest use of the f-word has been discovered, dating the word some 165 years earlier than had ever been seen. It appeared in the name "Roger Fuckebythenavele"
and in the dream-jobs-you-never-knew-you'd-kill-to-have department, litlnemo offers, "I teach a class on dirty surnames (yes, really) and this one so has to go into my list. Those medieval English people were not the most delicate of speech, let's just put it that way."
In other deep thoughts on names and other things, MCMikeNamara asks, Has Axl Rose ever commented on the fact that his stage name is an anagram for "oral sex"?
September 11, 2015
One of my friends from my graduate program is a "tiny caver" on this project, so I can't make my own post ... but I can comment!: ChuraChura adds some great link love to ladybird's post about the discovery of new hominin species "Homo naledi", and the skilled slender spelunkers recruited to excavate the nearly inaccessible find.
September 8, 2015
For those suffering Hannibal withdrawal: the fannibals are still dissecting the last episode in FanFare, with over 1,000 comments (wherein Kitteh executes a real-life Mads and Gillian Fanfare.Metafilter photo op!), plus the brand new Cannibal Club has cooked up some ideas for those hungry for more, including a club talk post to discuss the book "Hannibal Rising" in anticipation of a movie re-watch. Dig in, my fiends.
September 6, 2015
Oh, hey, the author of new book "NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity" is Steve Silberman, also known as Mefi's own digaman, and he showed up to say hi and answer some questions in the thread about the book.
September 5, 2015
Behind the Scenes, in recent member comments:
pinback on using Google Mobilizer as a proxy to render encrypted and obfuscated TV listings to create electronic program guides "back in the dark early days of digital television in Australia"
Eyebrows McGee on the complicated manipulations and confusion of special taxing districts
allkindsoftime on the hair-raising dangers and machinations of Nairobi's "matatu" minibus transit chaos
yankeefog on the concept of "convening an electoral college" as One Weird Trick for negotiating disputes or decisions in a healthy marriage
a fiendish thingy on resumes and job search etiquette, and why "creative" at this stage is more likely to read as "confusing" and "non-functional"
Frowner on the various considerations of navigating content/trigger warnings or disturbing material in an academic setting
September 4, 2015
Mystery Object of the purple persuasion: What the hell kind of animal is this?
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Want to hear Mefites hiss and spit over sins of omission (and inclusion!) in another "best books" thread, and pick up some member reading recommendations along the way? Check out the thread on The 51 Best Fantasy Series Ever Written.
In other news, Space Journey Walrus makes an entrance in a thread about some Very Serious Developments Indeed in the aftermath of the Hugo awards, soon acquiring form (and fashion) and narrative arc. What strange new realms await our hero?
September 3, 2015
Style Pile – arousing, spacey, spicy and dashing design recently on Mefi: Vintage condom package designs; An extravagant symbol of a man who can’t hide his true nature – A brief history on Spats; Taxi Fabric connects young Indian designers with taxi drivers; When Airlines Looked Cool and Showed It, posters from flying's golden age; In the '70s, NASA commissioned a redesign of their "meatball" logo... unfortunately a lot of NASA engineers hated it. And of course, Mefites weigh in on the Google logo redesign.
and in the Green: Who originated the ubiquitous laser/neon grid design of the '80s?; Cool examples of generative art?; How can I make beautiful Powerpoint Slides?; "The best way I can describe it is 'whimsical'" – Where can I get more plates like this?
September 2, 2015
A polyphony of music past recently in the blue:
11+ documentaries on the history of electronic music; Larry Chung talks about and plays a 1934 Gibson L-5; A three-hour mixtape of Goth history, nearly 50 tracks of early-to-mid eighties Goth classics; Pitchfork's 200 Best Songs of the 1980s; Anton Karas plays the Theme from the Third Man, on zither; Using Spotify plays to quantify how old music has stood the test-of-time; "massive chords of intemperate savagery" – the strange story of Jón Leifs' Organ Concerto; great highlights from This is Tom Jones, a variety show that ran from 1969-1971; "Old Weird America", you say? I got some right here for ya
September 1, 2015
In MetaTalk: Posting to the Front Page: You Can Do It Too! "If you have never or rarely posted a FPP but would like to, we’re here to help. Stretch your wings in September!"
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